Profile

Akiko Sharp is an instructor in the Japanese Program at the Department of Linguistics, Languages and Cultures at the University of Calgary. She has been teaching at the University of Calgary since 2003, and has taught Japanese to students from ages 4 to 80 in Japan, Canada and the UK.

Community Education

Her language-teaching career began teaching English at high schools in Japan. She was a founding member of Derby Japanese School (http://www.derbyjs.co.uk) for children of employees of the Toyota Derbyshire factory in the UK in 1991. She has been involved in community bilingual and heritage Japanese language education since she arrived on these shores in 1995, and has been an active volunteer in Winnipeg and Calgary promoting Japanese language and culture. She has served as Vice-Principal of the Calgary Japanese Language School and as President of SAJLTA (Southern Alberta Japanese Language Teachers’ Association) and is currently a board member of CAJLE (Canadian Association for Japanese Language Education). She is also a member of the organizing committee for the Alberta District Japanese Speech Contest as well as the National Japanese Language Speech Contest.